Collision
by CreepingMuse
Summary: Who says only Elena was affected by the sire bond?
1. Chamomile and Bourbon

_Oh hey guys. It's good to be back. It's been a busy year full of much writing and excitement, but I've missed you. So! Here we are with a little spin on Season 4. After all, the sire bond made no sense on the show, so why not play with it to meet our ends? Some portions will be canon, some will be new, and hopefully we'll have some fun together._

_Thanks to my wonderful, brilliant, talented beta readers. Thank you to JWAB for giving me encouragement and ass kicking in just the right measures, and to latbfan for always pushing me to think harder and dig deeper. Go read their stuff. Seriously._

* * *

It started with our choice of beverages, of all the damn things in the world. She started drinking bourbon; I started drinking tea. Chamomile, which I always though tasted like lawn clippings. But to her, it was calming, which she said I could use. So I tried it, just to humor her.

It didn't taste like lawn clippings anymore. It reminded me of the way the gardens out behind the slave cabins smelled when the wind blew through them and ruffled the herbs and flowers whose names I never bothered to learn. It _was _calming, and I needed a fuckload of calm. So I snuck into her tea canisters while she snuck into my bourbon decanters.

By the way, chamomile tea _with _bourbon? Don't try it. Trust me.

The beverage divide got deeper when it came to blood. I brilliantly insisted that Elena's weird doppelganger body could only tolerate blood straight from the vein.

"I'm not going to hurt people, Damon," she exclaimed for the fifty-eighth time.

"It doesn't hurt them," I said, also for the fifty-eighth time. "Some people even get their rocks off on it, and even if they don't, they won't remember," I said.

"But I will," Elena said, all sad brown eyes and quivering lower lip. I probably would've caved if I'd believed there was any other option but warm, real hemoglobin straight from a jugular.

I switched tactics instead. "You will. And you'll love it. It's like having sex while drinking champagne and eating a really great hamburger all at the same time." I paused, trying to imagine the mechanics of that. "That's a terrible analogy. Scratch that. It's more like-"

"I don't want to hear about it, Damon. Stefan lived for more than a hundred years on animal blood, and he was-"

"A psychotic killer who ripped people apart. I think that's _slightly _worse than giving someone a few days of anemia. You've just got to get over it and eat somebody," I said. I'd run out of patience when it came to teaching Elena that the sky was blue, the grass was green, and yes, vampires eat people.

"No, _you _need to learn that not everyone belongs to you. Drinking from a blood bag for a few days wouldn't kill you," she said, right before she flounced off to channel her inner Pocahontas with Stefan.

It sounds stupid, I know, but I _did _start drinking exclusively from blood bags. I told myself it was because I'd been so busy with Elena—you know, bringing her fresh clothes after she puked all over herself and keeping her from being murdered by psychopaths with C4. But deep down, in that part of myself I ignore whenever possible, I knew it was something different. It just felt wrong to go after those poor saps. What right did I have to snatch, feed, erase? Wasn't that taking away their choice, like Stefan had done to me all those years ago?

I drank more tea. I drank more cold, unsatisfying bagged blood. I lied to myself about why.

* * *

After a few days, I went back to the vein. She did, too. Just as I predicted, she loved it. I stupidly assumed it was because she was a vampire, and vampire plus blood equals good times. Seeing her stained with blood, dancing through a roomful of people who were all her potential victims, not worrying about who they were or whether she should kiss their boo-boos and make them feel better, was sheer ecstasy for me. She looked happy. She looked free.

Isn't life fucking _funny? _

The sire bond continued to spool out in ways big and small. She killed a man on my say-so; I didn't kill various assorted people for her. She took to wearing more black, including this one button down shirt where the first button was just above her bra so that her tits were served up on a silver platter, while I took to wearing that blue she said matched my eyes, even though it was two shades darker than my eyes and I thought it made me look soft. Weak.

All of the bullshit came to a head the night of Miss Mystic Falls. Only appropriate, since that's where I realized, to my shock and horror, that I loved her. I loved this child who looked exactly like Katherine and who, oh yeah, thought I was the biggest dick in a five-state area and who was madly in love with my brother. I sure know how to pick 'em.

Sure, she liked the dress I liked for that girl (what was her name, anyway?), but I don't care about that. What I did—what I _do _care about—is the way she came up to me after, dressed in black, and told me, softly, that I was what had come between her and Stefan. That it was all my fault. Only this time, it wasn't an accusation. It was...an apology, a promise, an impossible hope.

That night, we danced. My favorite thing (okay, second favorite thing) in the world, with my favorite girl. That would have been enough. Already my shriveled, blackened heart wanted to explode from sheer joy just because she chose to dance with me, touch me, be with me. There was no threat that night, no reason for her to look to me for comfort. It was just us reliving a memory and creating a new one.

But it didn't end there. We...the English language really sucks at words for sex. We've got lots of them (ask me to list them sometime when you've got a few hours), but nothing really describes what happens when two people who think they're in love just collide. Bodies and hearts and minds and all that other bullshit just slam together until you can't tell where one person ends and the other begins.

That's what's going to haunt me. For as long as I live, I'll never get over the fact that our collision was fake. Not just that her feelings weren't real—though that was awful enough. No, the cherry on the shit sundae was that it was just as fake for me. Of course I loved her, but I'd been manipulated by the sire bond as surely as she had, jumping into bed with her while she still smelled faintly of Stefan.

I will always be pissed that I couldn't love her just as myself, that the magical mumbo-jumbo of the sire bond made that night much more and so, so much less than it should have been. I was just as much of a puppet as she was. But that night and the morning that followed? I was happy. I was loved.

Until the phone rang.

* * *

"I don't have to hurt people anymore!" Elena threw her arms around me, which was impressive since I was shrinking, shrinking until I was about two inches tall.

Every second since she'd turned, I'd been manipulating Elena, making her into something that wasn't _her, _that wasn't the girl I loved. This fucking sire bond was robbing me of the woman I wanted by giving me the woman it thought I wanted.

All along, she just wanted not to hurt people. I clearly don't subscribe to that school of thought, but she does. Did. It's complicated. So even while she was one hundred percent justified killing Connor and munching on Matt, those things should be her call. It's one thing not to listen to the idiotic girl who wants to drown; it's another to force her to think she never wanted to drown at all.

"Damon?" Elena asked, confused about why I wasn't jumping up and down in glee like she was. "What's wrong? You should be happy right now."

A smile forced its way across my face. It felt like it had been stapled on. Something inside of me stirred sullenly, some little germ of grudging happiness. This was what she wanted, after all. Now that I knew she was sired to me, I could avoid it. I could—would have to—avoid her. "Nothing. I'm happy. Not nearly as happy as Donovan's going to be, though."

She pulled away, brow furrowing in a gesture that was way too Stefan-like for my tastes. "No, something's wrong."

"Drop it. You need to finish your lunch and get back to class. I'll come by your place tonight, okay?" I turned to leave, to figure out what the hell my game plan was going to be. Skip town, I guess. Should I tell her? No. I should just leave so she wouldn't have to deal with the fact that she slept with me against her will, that we fucked in seven positions that would make a yogini blush and it was all because of some weird vampire blood quirk.

"I'm not going to drop it. Tell me what's wrong—don't walk away!" she commanded.

I had one foot over the threshold of the empty classroom, but I stopped. There wasn't a physical force preventing me from leaving, but suddenly I needed to stay and tell her everything. I needed her to know why I was so confused and pissed off and that it wasn't her fault, it was all mine, every second of it, except-

"Elena, I'm going to tell you everything," I said through gritted teeth, stifling the urge to tell her every single thing that was wrong in my life at that second. We didn't have time for that; the list was too long. "But first, order me to do something. Anything. Jump on one foot, do a cartwheel, something."

"Damon, you're scaring me. Is this Klaus? Or Rebekah? Did they compel you?" Elena stepped forward, peering into my eyes like she could see the compulsion lurking there.

"No. It's—well, it's kinda like that, but will you just do it? I would really, really like it if you would tell me to do something," I said, immediately biting my tongue to stop myself from babbling out the one word that would change everything.

"Fine, okay. Just...I don't know, take your shirt off."

Great. The one time in my life that nudity wouldn't be welcomed. But I was fine. There was none of that pathetic, puppy-dog need to do what she said. "Okay. I was wrong." We were still fucked, but at least we hadn't broken new and weird ground in vampire-on-vampire biology.

She folded her arms over her chest and gave the patented Elena Gilbert half-pout, half-scowl. "Good. Glad you had fun playing Simon Says. Now will you tell me what's going on?"

A hundred lies danced through my mind, followed by a thousand smartass remarks. But all of them seemed wrong. I couldn't tell her the whole truth—I never told her that—but I could at least tell her part of it. "Just trying to figure out why you couldn't drink the bagged stuff in the first place. Besides that fact that it's cold and gross, that is."

"And what did that have to do with me ordering you to do something?" she asked, eying me skeptically.

This time, the lie came easily. "Sometimes I like it when you order me around," I said, waggling my eyebrows for all they were worth.

She gave an exasperated sigh, but she was smiling. "If you're going to scare me like that, you really _should _take your shirt off. As a consolation prize." She tugged at the hem of the deep blue t-shirt. "Go ahead. Take it off."

I grinned and covered her hand with my own, starting to give her the strip tease she'd earned. Nevermind what I had to do, nevermind that this would be the last time I'd ever see her again. I could have one last, perfect moment with her. No heavy goodbyes, no lingering looks, just fun with the girl who knew how to laugh. All she wanted was for me to take my shirt off. I could give her that, and besides, I wanted to-

No. No I didn't. But she wanted me to, so I did. Not in the way she wanted me too, though: I ripped the t-shirt over my head and as soon as it was clear, I jammed it back on, nearly dislocating my shoulder in the process.

My hands shook. My head buzzed. I'd been compelled more times than I could count, but this was worse than any of them. I'd believed it was my idea, believed it was really something I wanted to do, just because she wanted me to do it. And I almost hadn't realized it at all.

"Something is really wrong with you," Elena said. "What-"

"You're sired to me," I said. "And fuck if I'm not sired to you, too."


	2. Iron and Hurricanes

_Thanks for the warm welcome back. But mostly, thanks to JWAB for patiently de-suckifying this chapter not once, but twice. Friend, it will be an honor to sit beside you on the bus to hell. _

_Please enjoy._

* * *

"So this is what it's gonna be," Elena said, folding her arms across her chest. "This is your bump. I really thought we were past that."

"This is my _what_?" I racked my brain. Had I somehow said something that would make her dumber?

"Your bump. You think that because I can drink from a blood bag, I'm going to dump you. So you're pushing me away before I can do it to you." She tapped her foot on the ground, starting to work herself into a lather.

Somehow, this was about my bad behavior instead of how witches and blood magic are continually fucking me up the ass. "I'm not bumping anything. I'm trying to tell you-"

"Then what is it if it's not a bump? You said you were happy this morning, but now-" she breaks off, something terrible stealing across her face. "Is this because we slept together? I wasn't good enough? Did I not do it like Katherine did?" she said, angry tears welling up in her eyes. Her arms were folded so tightly, I could see bruises forming on her biceps.

"Jesus fucking Christ, of course not. Elena, you were perfect and you're an idiot if you think any differently." I knew I shouldn't touch her, knew we should stay far away from each other, but I couldn't help it. I tugged at her wrists until she unfolded her arms and then buried her in a hug. She relaxed against me. Even as a vampire, her hair smelled like sunshine. "This doesn't have to do with anything but the fact that it's true," I said.

She shoved me away. I stumbled into one of those flimsy desks and sent it skittering across the linoleum. "You're trying to find reasons that we can't be together. You're looking so hard, you're just making stuff up that couldn't possibly be true. The...parent vampire, I guess?-they're not part of a sire bond."

"Yeah, well, and I thought sire bonds were really rare until Klaus started making his hybrids. Look, facts are facts: You couldn't drink from a blood bag, and now you can. All because of dumb shit I said. Then after you made that crack about how drinking from a blood bag wouldn't kill me, that's all I drank for a week." I threw myself into the anger. The anger felt good. I couldn't punch the sire bond in the face, but I could yell at Elena. And the madder I was at her, the less likely I was to hurt her, ironically.

"Or how about the fact that you're wearing all-black like some goth wannabe and I'm-"

"Blood bags and fashion choices? That's your evidence?" She was smiling for some reason. I was very, very suspicious of that smile. She tried to thread her fingers through mine. I didn't pull away, but I didn't help, either. She gave up and enveloped my hand in both of hers. "Just accept it, Damon: I love you. And we're going to be happy now." She smiled up at me. Unicorns practically danced in her eyes.

With every cell of my body, I wanted to just nod and kiss her. It washed over me, warm and inviting, the pull to accept it, just believe the beautiful lie and go off looking for that happiness she promised me.

But that feeling was a liar. And right now, so was she.

"Remember when Tyler bit Caroline on Klaus' say-so? He didn't even know what he was doing. Just did it and almost killed her without even realizing it," I said, nearly vibrating with anger and regret and emotions I didn't have names for. "That's what a sire bond is. It fucks with your head, makes you think you want things that you would never want. Like me." I swallow around a baseball that had appeared in my throat. "It could make you really, really believe you're in love with me."

For a second, I clung to her hand. I knew it so well- every line, the faint callouses underneath her pinkie finger, the round scar from when she fell off her bike as a kid, right onto a rusty bolt. I knew how small her hands felt in mine, how soft her hands felt pressed against my chest, how strong they felt digging into my back.

Pulling free was the hardest thing I've ever done.

"Damon, this is insane. I don't think I'm in love with you, I _am _in love with you."

"Fucking _stop saying that _and think," I said with a curl of my lip. She shut her mouth so fast I heard her teeth click, and I shuddered. I did that. Unthinkingly, unknowingly, I forced her to be quiet and listen to me. Though it made me sick, I used that to my advantage. "Before you turned, it was Stefan forever. A slug of blood and a dip in the drink and suddenly it's all about me. What would you call that, Elena?"

I was horribly afraid she wouldn't be able to speak until I released her. But after a long, thoughtful moment, she answered. "I would call that change," she said.

Change. Right. Becoming a vampire doesn't change who you are. It's actually just the opposite. When you die, it's like you become a super-concentrated version of yourself. The good parts, the bad parts, the love parts, the hate parts. It doesn't change; it intensifies.

Unless you're sired.

"All that stuff about blood bags and colors, that's not a sire bond. That's love. You were just trying to make me happy, like I'm trying to make you happy." She huffed a long strand of hair out of her face. "You're making it really hard right now, though."

"I know all about love," I said. "I've been in love more-or-less continuously since 1864. When you're in love you may be an idiot, but you still have a choice." All right, maybe that's not one hundred percent true. I didn't choose to love Elena; love doesn't work like that. But everything else? I _chose _to try to be a better guy for her. I _chose _to try to make her happy. I didn't just do it because she said so, or else I'd be as pussy-whipped as Stefan.

"Who even told you about this? Things were fine when I left the house this morning," she said. She must have seen the answer in my face. "Seriously? Stefan?"

"The timing is a little suspect, but that doesn't mean it's not true," I muttered.

"That's what I've been trying to tell you! Even if the sire bond thing is true, it doesn't mean I don't love you." She said it as if her love was a scientific fact, as inarguable as gravity. "I know exactly how I feel. Tell me you do, too," she said pleadingly.

"I love you and I'm fucking scared for you and for me because something is not right," I said, the words tumbling in an unstoppable flow. I froze. "No, no, no," I moaned. Every word we said had the possibility of turning us into fucking zombies, unable to control even our own thoughts. And there was no vervain that could help us. "I can't be here. I gotta go."

"You're not going anywhere without me," she said, already dogging my heels. I shuddered, and suddenly I knew I wouldn't be able to take a leak without Elena until she said so. And part of me, a big part of me, didn't even want to.

"Take that back. You've got to take it back." My voice was high and pathetic but fuck it, I was scared.

"Take _what _back? This is all just bullshit," she said. When did she start cursing so fucking much?

"I've got to go see a witch. You can't come. But you have to come because you said that you do," I babbled. Get it together, Salvatore. Can't lose it now. Not yet. Not with her still here.

"Why do we need to see a witch?" she asked.

"No _we. _Only singular pronouns. You're staying in Mystic Falls. I'm going to figure this out. And then I'll be back." Probably. Unless there was bad news.

She called after me, but I flashed right the fuck out of there. Didn't care who saw me. Just went.

I made it halfway down the hall before I slowed to normal human speeds. Then I stopped. She had to come with me. I just knew she had to come. "Hurry up. We're going to New Orleans."

* * *

I didn't speak more than a dozen words on our trip down. Elena talked enough for both of us, though. In the Richmond Airport, she tried to use logic to explain why we weren't sired. But then, logic has never been her strong suit. On the flight to Atlanta, she babbled about graduation, which reminded me that I needed to compel her teachers again. At Hartsfield-Jackson, she tried dirty talk, reminding me of all the things we could have done on our first trip to Georgia, all the things we could do now.

Both my heart and my dick turned to stone.

There were no orders there, nothing I had to do. But right around the time she started talking about sex on the bar at Bree's, I couldn't take anymore.

"No sex. There will be no sex of any kind until we get to the bottom of this," I said softly but firmly. "Not a kiss, not even overly friendly hugging. Nothing." I hoped the sire bond was listening. This would keep both of us honest. "And while this is not an order, I would really, really appreciate it if you would stop giving me wood in public."

Elena blinked at me, taken aback. Part of me was glad. The madder she was at me, the better. The safer.

I got up to buy a magazine, surreptitiously readjusting myself as I did so.

Lucky for me, we couldn't get two seats together on our last flight, so I had plenty of time to close my eyes and think about Charlotte.

I liked Charlotte plenty. Mostly because she looked a little like Katherine if you were drunk enough, which I usually was. But she was a good-times gal. We had fun together. So when she asked me to turn her, I did. What the fuck did I have to lose, after all? I'd turn her, we'd have some fun, I'd go back to Katherine and she'd get a life of her own. Everybody wins.

Yeah. About that. After she turned, everything that was great and fun about her just got to be too much. She was so fucking literal, so intense, kept talking about love and being together forever and where did all _that _come from? Just like with Elena, it only cropped up after I turned her.

So if these things are so rare among vampires, why did it keep happening to me? And why was it double-sided? My working theory was that it's because Elena's the doppelganger, so everything's a little freaky with her, but really, I had no clue.

Fucking pigshit sire bond.

Walking into the Louisiana heat was like being smothered by a giant armpit. We rented a car—some Japanese POS; I was too distracted to even compel the counter jockey into giving me something decent—and drove to the French Quarter in silence.

I didn't want to be in the Big Easy. Especially not with Elena. At the same time, all I wanted was to take her to Cafe Du Monde and watch her lick powdered sugar off her fingers. I wanted to take her to the dirtiest, oldest jazz club we could find and never take my eyes off her face as some old colored man wailed on a trumpet. I wanted to watch her feel the music in her chest, the way it throbbed with pain and strength. She'd get it. I knew she would.

We parked. Someone immediately told Elena to show him her tits. I started toward him, but Elena flashed compulsion eyes and told him to go home, sober up, and treat women with a little respect.

"Good job with that dick," I said grudgingly as we picked our way around puddles of puke and piss.

"Oh, you're talking to me now?" she said. "Did you want to yell at me, or are you going to magically cockblock me again?"

"Thought you didn't believe we were sired."

"I don't, but you do. So stop trying to make me do stuff if you hate it so much." She had a point, but I wasn't about to tell her that. Luckily, her statement had a conditional clause, so I figured I was safe. For now.

I peered into every shop window on Bourbon Street. New Orleans is the one city in the world where there are too many fucking witch shops, and I couldn't quite remember which one I'd been to seventy years ago. The real magical types cover up their actual power with chicken feathers and voodoo bullshit, which makes it a challenge. But I'd find it. Somewhere.

"If you'd tell me what we're looking for, I could help," Elena shouted over the din of a street corner brass band.

"Witch," I answered.

"That narrows it down. Thanks." Was that my sarcasm rubbing off on her, or was I just fucking paranoid about everything? I guessed both things could be true. I jerked my head and led her onto a slightly quieter (and less vomity) side street.

"If we find this witch, what are you even hoping to find out?" Elena asked. "Is there a spell or something that can reverse it? We could've just asked Bonnie."

"Bonnie doesn't know her ass from a hole in the ground," I said. "Besides, she's pretty busy with Professor Statutory Rape. I've met this witch before. She'll be able to confirm our sire bond is a thing-"

"Which it's not."

"-and how to break it." Elena was not going to like that part. Not even a little bit. But maybe I could sire-bond-mojo her into being okay with slaughtering twelve random winos. I'd be fine with siring her into that if it meant I never could—or had to—force her to feel anything ever again.

Yeah. I saw the goddamn irony. No need to point it out. Fact is, I knew that shit worked. I never saw Charlotte again, and if she was still sired to me, she would've come looking for me. Thank fuck I wasn't sired back to her.

"When were you here before?" Elena asked.

"Long time ago." Shit. Was it east or west of-

My mental cartography was interrupted by a sloppy kiss that tasted of iron and hurricanes. "I did it, Damon! I did just what you said: I counted every brick in the Quarter. I knew you'd come back. I'm so glad you're back. It's seven hundred and forty-seven thousand, five hundred and eleven bricks, by the way. I checked and double-checked and then checked a few more times, just to be sure."

Charlotte attempted to eat my face again, but I stiff-armed her. "What do you mean, you counted and counted?"

"Damon?" Elena asked, hovering nearby as if she might need to protect me from tiny, chirpy Charlotte. "She counted just like you told her to?" Elena was suddenly very pale.

"Who's she? She smells like you," Charlotte said. I knew she didn't just mean her skin. I was willing to bet she knew that Elena was one of mine. My...child? Sire? Progeny? Vampires have fucking lame names for this shit.

I was mulling over etymology because my brain couldn't fully process how bad this scenario was. Because this meant all the shit was crashing down.

Charlotte was hopelessly, inevitably sired to me.

The spell that was supposed to work had failed.

She was staring at Elena like she was Satan incarnate. Elena's look was only slightly less wrathful.

I stepped between them.

"Charlotte, Elena, Elena, Charlotte. Charlotte, I'd really like it if you gave us a minute. Can you just go around the corner until I come and get you?"

"Of course!" Without a backward glance, she frolicked behind a building. I hoped she wasn't counting.

"What," Elena asked slowly, "was that?" But she knew. She stared after Charlotte and she got a good look into our future. Hopelessly bound to each other, doing every piddly, chickenshit thing the other told them to for decades, centuries, forever.

"That's what a sire bond looks like, Elena." I tried to be gentle. It didn't work.

"That's...that's not us. That's not how we act." Her throat quivered.

"Really? Hey, Elena, it'd really make me happy if you'd go and join Charlotte. She is your sister, after all." I have never felt less happy in my life.

"My-" She broke off. Shook her head. "It'd make me happy if you went and fucked yourself, Damon." That didn't stop her from following Charlotte around the corner while I thanked my (un)lucky stars her request was physically impossible.

I took a moment to look up at the bricks surrounding us. Bricks and bricks and bricks. Seventy years of bricks and loneliness.

I turned the corner and tried to figure a way out of this.


	3. One Night and One Morning

_Thanks to both JWAB and latbfan for talking me down off various crazy ledges and helping me get my head in the proper writing space. Seriously, go read latbfan's recently completed opus "Bourbon Before Breakfast" and JWAB's ongoing and glorious "What I Did on my Summer Vacation." Both are stunning. _

_The final product here s unbeta'd, so any mistakes are my own._

* * *

I couldn't do it. I knew I needed to man up, walk around that corner, and face the two women who loved me more than anything in spite of all reason and logic. But I never was much good at being a man. I stopped out of their sight and leaned my forehead against the building. Though the sun had been down for hours, the bricks still radiated soupy heat.

There had to be a way out of this. That way was probably running. Shouting that they could leave, should leave, needed to leave, and then blurring off and not stopping until I hit the Gulf. Then dive in and swim for Mexico, where the brunette girls with dark eyes would do things because I was handsome and rich, not because I they were forced into loving me.

No good could come from me walking around this corner. Any and every word was a potential bombshell. Hell, even things I said as jokes seventy years ago had come back and bitten me in the ass.

...Okay. It wasn't a joke. Not entirely. I'd known what it would do. But I'd thought it would end with those twelve deaths. Of course, I hadn't cared enough to make sure it had.

Fuck.

"You don't have to keep counting," Elena said. I turned my face toward the noise. The top layer of skin scraped off my cheek against the bricks, then healed as if the wound had never existed.

"Oh, I know. I just like counting," Charlotte said. "I even got the most darling little studio apartment just around the corner. For during the days, you know. At any rate, it even has this charming exposed brick wall—I think it used to be a carriage house or something—so I can count even when I can't be outside. It just helps me remember Damon."

I was going to puke. Right there on the sidewalk, I was going to puke up blood and airline peanuts.

"How long have you been...remembering Damon?" Elena asked, ever the diplomat.

"Almost exactly seventy years. It'd be just like him to come back on our anniversary, wouldn't it? So romantic."

Which was worse: counting bricks for seventy years or being in love with some overly romanticized version of _me _for seventy years? I'd pick death over either option.

Silence hung over all three of us. I wonder if either of them had walked away, but then I remembered they can't.

"Where the hell is Damon?" Elena muttered. I heard her suck in a deep breath. "Look. You know that the counting—you didn't do it just because you liked it. You're-"

"Sired to him. I know," Charlotte said. Well, guess I didn't give her enough credit—I never thought she was all that bright. "Nandi told me. She's a witch. Her mom knew Damon. She never really liked me much, which was too bad because there are some _beautiful _bricks near her shop, this kind of deep, almost purple color. But after her mom died, Nandi came out and met me and told me that the sire bond was because I loved Damon before I turned. Which was true."

"Wait, what?" Elena said. I, on the other hand, had lost my ability to form coherent thoughts.

"Mhmm. That's what makes the bond. If you love someone before you're turned—really, really love them in the serious, forever kind of way—then their heart's blood mixes with yours and creates a sire bond after you die. Or that's what Nandi said. It certainly sounds romantic, doesn't it?"

Elena loved me. She loved me before. Before she took her last watery breaths, she loved me in the serious, forever way. Even if she couldn't think about always, some part of her was. And that always was me.

But wait. Let's rewind that. If a mother turned her daughter, they'd love each other, right? So was Anna sired to Pearl? And why wasn't I sired to Katherine? I loved her more than was humanly possible even when I _was _human, so why the fuck wasn't I her whipped little bitch?

I stomped out that flickering hope inside of me. It didn't matter what Charlotte said or what this Nandi said. I don't even know why I thought witches could help—they'd already fucked me over once. And now here they were, making me believe things that couldn't be true.

Fuck witches.

"So Damon turned you too?" Charlotte asked, as if nothing was wrong.

"Yes," Elena said, her voice high and strangled. "Kind of by accident, but he did."

"By accident? Oh, he turned me on purpose. Definitely on purpose-I'd begged him for weeks. But ohh," she moaned, "it was worth it." My mind cast back. How the fuck did I turn her? It was so long ago and it meant so little, but—oh.

Oh. Shit.

"He fed me his blood when we were in bed together. He'd just shown me this new thing I'd never tried before—I was sitting on his lap facing away from him, bouncing up and down. Just as we both came, he snapped my neck. It was like riding lightning," Charlotte said happily.

Elena coughed. I could practically hear the blood rushing to her cheeks, even though we'd been in a similar, though less neck snappy position less than twenty-four hours ago. "Damon, why don't you come out? I know you're there."

I slunk around the corner like the coward I was. Standing together under a streetlight, they looked almost like sisters. Except for their eyes. Charlotte's shone with happiness when they fell on me, while Elena's held something dark and unreadable.

"Hi," I said, in the most brilliant opening line of all time.

Charlotte skipped over and threw her arms around me. I knew I shouldn't hold her, that she meant nothing to me, but I couldn't let her go.

I was her Katherine.

I'd made promises I never intended to keep. I'd known she was in love with me and I didn't give a good goddamn. Then I left. And she waited and spent seventy years hiding from the sun in a rathole apartment, counting bricks on the wall. Even now, I could hear her lips moving as she counted over my shoulder.

"Stop that," I snapped, pulling out of her grasp.

Charlotte blinked once, then looked at me. "Oh, sorry. Force of habit. But now that you're back, I don't have to count any more. Right? Isn't that what you said? Until you got back?"

"That's right. And you did a great job. But now you never have to count again. Unless you want to." Fuck. How could I phrase this in such a way that it was guaranteed not to backfire? There wasn't one. But I couldn't lead her on the way Katherine did to me. I might be a cruel fuckhead, but even I'm not that cold. "Just—what I'm saying is, you should do what you want. That's the most important thing."

"What I want is to be with you. Can we go somewhere besides New Orleans? I've never even been out of Louisiana. Can we go to the Big Apple? Or maybe overseas? My brother served in France, Normandy. He's buried there, I hear. I'd love to-"

"Charlotte." Her body quivered like a dog. She was either ready to fetch me my slippers or pee all over the rug from excitement. "We aren't going anywhere together. You know that, don't you?" I tried to be gentle, but I wasn't very good at it.

"If you _want_ to stay in New Orleans, that's fine. Of course it is. You haven't been here as long as I have. Though I suggest we try to be on our way out of town before summer truly settles in," she said. I couldn't decide if she was stupid after all or if she was being willfully ignorant.

"I never loved you," I said. "I never intended to be with you. I was waiting for someone else."

"For her?" Charlotte jerked her chin at Elena.

"I didn't know it, but yes. She was the one I was really waiting for. And what happened to you...I didn't mean for it to happen, if that's any consolation." I doubted it was, but hey, worth a shot. "But I don't love you." It is impossible for those words to be kind. Trust me, I've been on the receiving end of them enough times to know. Charlotte flinched back as if I'd struck her.

"But, I love you," she said. Elena reached out as if to comfort her, because of course she did. She's Elena fucking Gilbert, and she can't stand to see another person in pain, even if she's the indirect cause of that pain. But Charlotte was immune to the patented Elena Gilbert charm. She twisted to the side. "I can't just forget that I love you."

I tilted my head to the side. Could it really be that easy? I didn't know how to make this right, but I had to try. "Charlotte," I said. "I want you to-"

Elena's hand clenched around my arm, nails digging in until I yelped. "Don't you dare," she said, voice as cold as I'd ever heard it. "Don't you dare tell her anything you _want _her to do."

"I'm trying to help her," I hissed, yanking my arm free.

"If she wants to love you, that's her right. If you really hate this sire bond you have with me so much and want to break it, what makes it different with her? Why can you just wave your hand and pretend like her love never existed, never meant anything?" Elena said. Tears shone in her eyes; she seemed even more upset than Charlotte was.

"She thinks she loves me; that doesn't mean it's real. If I can just let her go, she might have a chance to be happy with someone else," I said.

"Are you talking about her or are you talking about me?" Elena said. "Is that what you're going to do? Use her as a guinea pig and then if it works, do the same thing to me?"

"Can we talk about this later?" I could only deal with one fucking sire bond at a time.

"Damon?" Charlotte's voice was quiet but fearless. "Will you look at me, look me in the eyes, and tell me you don't love me?"

Again. I would have to break her heart again. She'd been expecting fireworks and rockets' red glare, and instead...

I stepped away from Elena and faced Charlotte square on. She didn't look so much like the Petrovas now. She did look young, though. More than ninety years old and never lived a day. "I don't love you."

She folded in half then, like I'd punched her in the gut. But she sucked in a deep breath. "Do you love her?"

"Yes."

"Does she make you happy?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"You owe me this," Charlotte said, and I couldn't argue.

"She drives me crazy. She infuriates me. I worry about her all the time. And yeah, she makes me happier than I ever thought I could be." I don't look away from Charlotte's big, young eyes. Even if it was just for one night and one morning, Elena and I had been happy. That's more than some people get in a lifetime.

"She's the one you want? Forever?"

"I don't-" I tugged at my hair. "Things are complicated right now. But yeah, in a perfect world, she's the one I want."

"It's never going to be perfect," Elena said. "But you _are _the one I want. No matter what."

I didn't dare look at her, because if I did, I might start to believe what she'd said. Charlotte continued as if she hadn't spoken ."If you really love her. If she really makes you happy. If she's really the one you want, forever, then you should go and be with her. You should forget about me." Tears shone in the lamplight, but she was smiling.

I didn't understand what was happening. Why she was doing this. Not that it'd be hard for me to forget about her—I still couldn't remember her last name—but I'd expected a fight. That I'd have to defend Elena. Something.

"Charlotte-" I started, needing to say something to comfort her, to tell her that she had meant something to me. One last lie.

"No," she said, reaching up to cup my cheek. "I love you enough to let you go. All that matters is that you're happy. Will you promise to be happy? For me?"

I glance over at Elena. She's crying too. Everybody's crying but me. God, I hope I'm not crying. "I'll try," I said.

Charlotte smiled again. "Love you," she says. She walked down the street, head high, face straight ahead. She did not count.

When she reached the corner, she stopped and looked over her shoulder. "Oh, Elena? If you hurt him, I'll play marbles with your eyeballs." She twinkled her fingers, and then she was gone.

Elena and I stood alone under the watchful gaze of seven hundred and forty-seven thousand, five hundred and eleven bricks.


	4. Irony and Infection

_Thank you, as always, to latbfan. You always know the right questions to ask and which bits of the story are the most important. Sure, it usually leads me to scrapping most of the chapter and starting again, but it's always better the second (or third...) time around. Thanks, friend._

* * *

I was cautiously optimistic about our chances of finding a way to break the sire bond. After all, Elena and I both made a specialty of making the impossible possible. It was a damper in our plans that Nandi had moved out of the Big Easy back in '05—of course she had—but she was just down the road in Houston. We'd grab a bite to eat, hit the road, engage in a moderate level of threatening, and have a solution. It'd be fine.

But as it turned out, fine was a long way off. Choosing prey, I avoided anyone who looked like they might have a kid. I avoided the jail bait. I avoided all of my usual favorites and settled on a leathery old cougar. Elena chose a nubile co-ed who was sloshed out of her gourd. Elena's bite wasn't neat and tidy; it was brutal, tearing instead of puncturing. The girl cried out.

"Elena, take it easy," I said. "I taught you better than that." Which was true, except that deep, painful feed reminded me of myself back in my early days, back before I went into my Puritanical phase, when the only thing that could drown thoughts of Katherine was the blood.

Elena tried to check herself, but she guzzled and nipped at the girl's ragged flesh, ignoring her whimpers. She finally pulled away and did some brisk compulsion work, but by that time I'd thoroughly lost my appetite and sent my dinner away. After all, she could've had kids, too. She was just out here prowling the Quarter to get away from something, after all-

Since when did I give any fucks about why my dinner was sad? And since when did Elena choose adorable little girls and leave their throats in shreds?

"You feeling okay?" Elena asked. I reached into my pocket and handed her a wet wipe so she could clean her face. "You didn't eat."

"Yeah, fine. I was just thinking, it's a long way to Houston and we're both tired. Maybe we should wait until morning. Start fresh," I suggested. Maybe then I'd feel more like myself.

"I could drive."

I twisted around to face Elena. Not once in the time I'd known her had she ever offered to drive. Not that I would have let her, but still. "You hate driving," I said. Once, last summer, she'd confessed to me her deep fear, bordering on phobia, of driving. Every time she sat behind the wheel, she was reminded of the night her parents died. Didn't matter that she hadn't been driving—the associations were still there. I imagined they were even worse now, given her second round of auto-related drowning.

"I'll do it if it gets us to Houston faster. You can get some sleep in the car and we'll be there by morning," she said, scrubbing blood from around her cuticles. "You're the one who's been so anxious to get this done. I thought you'd be ready to go."

I forced a smirk. "True, but I hate threatening when I haven't had my beauty sleep. C'mon, I'll get us a nice hotel and we'll get up first thing in the morning. This is what we should do," I said, stressing the last few words. We couldn't go to Houston. We couldn't go anywhere together.

Elena shrugged and held her hand out to me. I took it, and as we walked the Quarter in search of a hotel, I memorized her. The slight clamminess of her hand. The way her eyes lit up as we passed a huddle of street performers playing mediocre jazz. The huskiness of her voice as she leaned over and said, "it's going to be okay. I promise it's going to be okay."

I nodded and held her hand tighter. I needed her to believe that. She couldn't see—or didn't want to see—the way we were bleeding into each other. This wasn't just a matter of verbal commands or fucking bourbon versus tea—this was a matter of _infection_. Her becoming fierce and wild and me becoming emotional and _nice_. I loved that in her, that wasn't me.

We checked into a ludicrously overpriced suite at some big chain hotel. Normally I wouldn't have been caught dead here, but I was long past caring. We would only be here a few hours. Then I'd do what needed to be done and neither of us would see New Orleans again.

Charlotte had made my choice clear. If I loved Elena—which, of course—I had to let her go. Did I give a fuck that she'd refused to let me send Charlotte away? Of course not. But I couldn't let her become like me. And if the sire bond really reached so deeply, I had no faith that another fucking witch could fix us.

We'd have this last night together. She'd sleep—she always fell asleep after a feed—and I'd watch her. For old time's sake. I knew what she'd look like, but I had to see it one last time. She was so different now from the girl I'd first seen on the road, but in sleep, she still looked peaceful. Happy. Sure, there was no more rhythmic rise and fall of her chest, but otherwise, she was still that girl.

When she woke, I'd lean down and whisper into her ear. I'd repeat the words I'd told Jeremy: She would miss me, but this would be for the best. I'd respect her fucking agency—I wouldn't make her forget she'd ever loved me, I'd simply make it so she didn't anymore. So she could be free.

So I could be free.

That was the plan. I thought it was a pretty good plan. Yes, I really should have done it right then, but I was weak. I needed one last night to bury my face in her hair and breathe her in.

I was really fucking stupid.

I pulled the hotel room door shut behind me and turned. Elena stood there, almost on top of me. Her eyes were wide. "You will _not _tell me I don't love you. You will _not _send me away. You will _not _make me forget you. Are we clear?"

Plans A through C burst into flames. My paranoia was rubbing off on her, too. Great. But that was okay. There were still twenty-three more letters in the alphabet. There had to be a loophole, something that left an escape hatch for her-

"Tell me if we're clear," Elena said, her voice tinged with steel.

"Of course we're fucking _clear, _Elena," I sneered. I could do this. I could force her to push _me _away. Yes. This one always, always worked. "When shit goes bad, you just fuck with someone's head. But God forbid anyone should touch one precious neuron of yours. So yeah, we're clear as goddamn crystal on this one, you hypocrite."

"Are you seriously mad at me because I took away your free will to take away _my _free will?" Elena asked, eyes narrowing.

"It's for your own-"

An accusatory finger jabbed in my face. "Don't you _dare _say it's for my own good, Damon Francisco Salvatore," she hissed. I always knew telling her my middle name would come back to bite me one of these days. "This isn't about what I want. I told you what I want: you. Period. Your choices are still your own. You are still one hundred percent in control of your actions. What you can't do—and what you claim you don't want to do-is to control mine."

Our eyes locked, but I looked away first. I couldn't and she knew it. On my own, I would never be able to walk away from her. I was too weak and always had been.

You had to admire the irony, though. All I'd ever wanted my whole long, long life was for someone to stay. Someone to fight for me. I'd just wanted to be _enough. _And here was Elena, swearing to me that I was, that all I had to do was reach out and take what she was offering, and that'd be that. We'd be trapped together forever.

The chains of the sire bond twisted around me until I couldn't breathe. "You don't know what you're saying, Elena. The sire bond is changing both of us. Didn't you see yourself out there on the hunt? You were brutal with that girl, who might have been younger than you are-"

She stomped one foot, hip thrusting to the side. "I haven't eaten since school this morning. I'm sorry if I got a little bit carried away, but what the fuck does that have to do with you?"

"Because I ruled out one possible meal because he had 'Mom' tattooed on his arm and I couldn't deal with hurting some poor mama's boy." I brushed past her and into the room. Absurdly, I wanted a cup of chamomile tea. Just a little bit of honey. But instead, I ripped open the minibar and snatched up a teeny tiny bottle of Jack. It was barely a mouthful, but the burn helped. I threw the bottle into the trashcan, satisfied as it shattered into glass confetti. "I don't know who the fuck we are anymore. Either one of us."

Elena was silent. She circled closer to me, wary. "Really? Because with you, I know who I am now more than ever. That's someone who's still changing, still becoming, but-"

"Changing for the worse. Becoming like me. That's not what you want. I can't do that to you," I said. Tears sprang to my eyes and fuck no. I was not doing this. I was Damon Francisco Fucking Salvatore, and I did not cry. "You have to let me do this."

"Too late," she said simply. "I already took that option off the table."

I didn't answer. Couldn't. I braced myself against the counter with the minifridge. Behind me, I heard Elena settle onto the couch. Neither of us spoke. I focused on calming my jagged breathing, but it didn't help.

"You're scary, you know that? Ever since I first saw you, you've scared the crap out of me." She laughed. "Not just the bad boy chic or the fact that ripping hearts out is a hobby for you. Though that's scary too. But something about you. You demand everything. You won't let anyone hide. You want the good parts and the bad parts and the ugly parts. And showing all that to someone, God. It's terrifying."

"Is that what you want to become? Terrifying?"

"No. What I want is for you to give me the same thing you're asking me. Because that's what this is really about, isn't it? It's not about me or what I want. This is about you being too scared to just be in love—not chasing the girl, not wanting the girl, but having her and living with her every day," Elena said.

"I'm not scared," I said, because that makes such a great comeback.

"You shouldn't be. When I think of how much we've both changed since we met—the guy you were and the girl I was? We never could have been together. We had to meet somewhere in the middle. That's what we've done, and that's what we're still doing. Maybe it's not the sire bond at all." Her hand came to rest on my shoulder. "Maybe it's just love."

It all sounded so plausible. After all, love does that. It changes us.

But I was the one who _chose_ to change.

"If love means I can't be who I am, if it means I have to become some fucked-up version that's half me, half you, then I don't want it," I said.

She froze still as a rabbit. "You don't mean that."

Of course I didn't. Except for the parts of me that did. The parts that couldn't accept twisting Elena into my own image or becoming weak, soft, caring about the feelings and emotions of every goddamn thing in the world. Those parts thought love was a pretty worthy sacrifice for freedom.

I shook her hand off. "Go to bed," I ordered. "I'll take the couch."

"We're not going to bed angry. Let's just-"

"Go. To. Bed." I glanced over my shoulder at her and my resolve weakened. She looked like I'd just killed her puppy. "Please. I need to think. I promise I'll still be here when you wake up."

"And I'll still love you when I wake up," she said. In that moment, she was utterly and fully Elena.

She whispered to me through the wall all night. Words of love, reassurance. She talked about the dream I gave Rose and the way I'd stayed with Ric until the bitter end. She talked about how she'd asked me to send Jeremy away, how she'd stabbed that vampire with a pencil to save herself. How we'd changed long before the sire bond.

I drank my way through the minibar and clung to what was left of me.


	5. Warm and Whole

When Elena emerged from the bedroom, I was calm. Composed. Oh, pain still throbbed like a toothache, but it was hidden under a shot of Novocaine. Or, you know, teeny tiny bottles of booze and an empty stomach. I wasn't drunk—I never stay drunk long enough—but it was enough insulation to keep me functional.

I jerked my head to the door. "Five hours to Houston. Bet we can make it in three and a half."

"We need to talk," Elena said, four words that'll send shivers up any man's spine. Except mine. I had no more fucks to give.

"Nope, we need to go. If we don't beat rush hour, we're fucked. Vamoose." I ushered her to the door, barely giving her time to pick up her overnight bag. Her hair hung in loose tangles and she hadn't even had time to put on that gold eyeshadow she always wears.

She was beautiful. I didn't look at her again.

In the car, she started the "we need to talk" song and dance again, but I cranked up the radio until one of the car's cheapass speakers shrieked, rattled, and died. The rest of the noise was still enough to block out most of what she was saying, even with my vamp-o-sonic ears. She got the point and sat in huffy silence.

Perfect.

Eventually the classic rock station gave way to static. Neither of us reached for the dial. White noise eddied around us. I focused on my foot on the gas, my hands on the wheel, weaving in and out of traffic at the last possible moment before we smashed into each other. I wished I had my car, or at least a manual transmission. One more thing to focus on, the smooth shift of gears, the subtle changes in the motor.

We glided on a narrow strip of I-10 in the middle of a malarial swamp. Giant, gnarly gators glared at us from both sides of the road. The yellow line separating us from oncoming traffic began to blur and twist.

I over-corrected back to the center of my lane and sat up straight. Tired, that's all. Not much sleep the night before last, and then none at all last night. But hey, I'm a fucking vampire. Sleep is optional, I told myself. And I was fine. Cool. Calm. Collected. Numb. Just needed to pay more attention.

If Elena noticed my swerving, she didn't mention it. Just watched the cypresses swim past the window.

Everything was fine for ten miles. We crossed a bridge, up and up and up until all we could see was sky. Elena closed her eyes and clutched the door handle. I touched her knee before I could stop myself. She transferred her death grip to my hand.

We descended back into more murky swamp. The world was darker and darker, dark as night though it was only a few hours past dawn. I blinked again and again, expecting my vampire vision to kick in, but now black, Rorschach-like splotches squirmed every time I blinked. I took my hand back from Elena, scrubbed at my eyes-

The tires howled. The world spun. Arms grabbed the wheel, hauling it hand over hand. Honking erupted. I had enough sense to get my foot off the brake, and we coasted to a stop on the shoulder. The world was bright again, but hazy, like I was viewing everything through a veil.

Elena shifted the car into park and smashed the radio off, shattering the computer display. Well, guess we weren't getting our deposit back. "What the hell was that?"

I leaned against the headrest. "Nodded off for a minute."

"The hell you did. When was the last time you ate?"

I thought back and back and back. Not the night before. Not the morning before; I'd been too preoccupied with Elena. Then the night before _that_ I'd been pretty preoccupied with Elena, too. "Couple days ago. Not a big deal. I'll be fine."

"We've got to find you someone to eat," she said, and I winced.

"We'll find a blood bank." I reached for the ignition, but quick as a snake, she had the keys. I blinked. When did she get so fast?

"We're in the middle of nowhere, in case you hadn't noticed. Where are we going to find a blood bank?"

"Where are we going to find someone to eat?" I countered. "You can't possum in the middle of the road here unless getting run over by cars doing eighty is your idea of a good time."

"Are you really going to be this way?" she huffed, pushing a hank of hair out of her face. "I see now why you were so irritated when I pulled this vegan bullshit."

"I am not being any way," I said with tremendous patience. "I am very focused on our goal. Snacks can come later. Give me the keys."

"Or I could drive."

"Oh, fuck no."

"Then eat something and I'll give them back." I started to explain again how our options were limited since we were smack in the middle of _Deliverance _country, but Elena raised her wrist to her mouth. Veins spread across her face like frost on a windowpane. The smell of her filled the air.

When I say _her, _I mean every part of her. The blood itself smelled, well, like blood. Like iron and copper, like protein and hemoglobin. It also held that faint whiff of decay that comes with vampire blood, wilted funeral flowers and putrid flesh. But then there was the smell of her, of her sex and her body and every part of her that I had just begun to know.

All of that gleamed from two garnet pricks on her wrist. Slowly, deliberately, she licked the blood from her fangs. Beautiful, engorged veins still throbbed on her cheeks. "Drink."

My tongue rasped against my lips. "I don't need it."

"You do. But either way, you want it." She held her wrist out to me. "I won't force you, but I'll ask you. Just drink."

It was so tender and kind, a world away from the brusque way I'd ordered her to drink. In the bathroom of the Grill, no less—am I a romantic or what? Back before I'd known any of this, when I'd been hurt and lost and I wanted to claim her, make her mine in a way Stefan could never take back.

I bent my head. The ragged holes in her arm were already scabbing, so I broke them wide open again with the tips of my fangs. An electrical tremor pulsed through her. I drank.

Most of the time, vamp-on-vamp feeding is a BJ with less groin and more teeth. There's sucking and swallowing and release and it's good. It's fun. It's not...shit, I don't know, it's not _mystical._ But even when Elena fed from me, even though I almost creamed myself like a hyper-hormonal twelve year old, it wasn't like this.

_This _wasn't about feeding my slightly desiccated body. It went deeper than that, filled something up inside of me that had run dry for years and years. Maybe a part of me that had never been filled at all. For the tiniest flash, I swear my heart skipped a beat and I felt almost alive again. All I knew was that for the first time in more than a hundred years, I felt warm.

For the first time ever, I felt whole.

Our hearts raced in time. Her fist closed to hasten the flow of blood, and with it came a rush of sweet sadness, ashes and cream and Elena.

Someone—her, me, both of us—cried out. Not an orgasm, but the kind of cry you make when you stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon and glimpse, just around the edges, something so much bigger and so much more than yourself.

My mouth broke from her flesh and we clung to each other.

I have never been more scared.

* * *

I don't know how long we sat there on the side of the road. A while. But eventually I sat up, pulling my cheek away from where it had rested against hers. I plucked the keys from where they'd fallen on the floor.

"You okay?" I asked.

"What...what was that?"

"I told you it was kinda personal."

"Not like that."

"Sire bond, then," I said grimly.

"But we were bonded before. At the Grill. Weren't we?" She leaned forward, putting her head between her knees, as if her blood moved like that anymore. As if she needed to breathe.

"We must have been. That's how sire bonds work." Except when they didn't. Except that there was no fucking consistent rule for sire bonds except that hybrids are automatically bonded bitches suckling at Klaus' teat. Except all we really knew were witch lies and half-truths.

"We also weren't together then," she said, as if I needed the reminder that I basically got a stealth hummer from my brother's girl. "And sex is different when you love someone. Maybe it's true with this, too."

"Are we going to deconstruct blood sharing or are we going to get on the road and break the sire bond?" I jangled the keys, but didn't start the car. I still needed a minute to recover from...whatever that was. I leaned my head on the steering wheel, cheap imitation leather branding my skin.

Elena didn't answer. I turned my head to the side just in time to see her touch the place where she'd bitten herself. Where I'd bitten her. "What if they're the same thing?"

"What?"

"Is it possible," she said slowly, "that you were right?"

"I'm always right."

She ignored me. "What if I did just need human blood from the vein after I turned, but didn't want to admit it to myself?"

"It's...unlikely but not impossible," I allowed. "You are the doppelganger, so your anatomy might already be fucked up and weird."

"Gee, thanks. So then, did I drink from the bag because you said I could, or because I'd gotten over whatever issues I needed to get over and was ready to accept being a vampire? Did I kill Connor because you said I should, or because he was going to kill me?"

I finally saw where she was going. And she was going to a stupid, dumb, wrong place. "Skip the magical thinking, Elena. Sire bonds are real and we've got one. Or did you want to go count some bricks?"

"I'm not Charlotte and neither are you. Neither of us has done anything crazy or anything that would get us hurt. We've just...followed suggestions from the person we love."

God, she still said it so casually. I wondered if I would ever get over the shock of hearing those words form her lips. I hoped not, even as I lashed out at her. "That doesn't explain the rest of it. These past few days—the classroom, all the little snipes and jabs we made at each other, we did it all. We obeyed, just like Charlotte did," I said.

"We only started acting like the bond was real once Stefan and Caroline planted the seed," she said. "The rest of it, the stuff that came before, there's a logical explanation for it."

"Okay, so maybe you have a _highly suggestible _subconscious. We'll go with that for the moment. I don't. I'm suspicious of fucking everyone and I don't do as I'm told. I also don't drink tea or care about the Happy Meals I feed from." Well, I didn't. Until I met Elena.

No, after that. Until I loved Elena.

"We listen to each other. We trust each other. We do things that make each other happy. Not all the time, but we try. Is that a sire bond, or is that just who we are now? Who we've made each other." She reached for me, tried to stroke my hair like I'm a puppy dog, but I jerked upright.

"It's not who I want to be," I snarled. "When you change, there's a choice. I _choose _to be the good guy or I _choose _to be the bad guy. But this, there isn't a choice, isn't a _thought-_"

"Oh really? Damon, when was the last time you _chose _to kill someone you fed on?" she asked, an edge of steel to her voice.

I drew a blank. "It's been a while, but that's just because it's a pain to hide the bodies. And-and...I just don't want to," I finished lamely. It made her unhappy, for one, and I hated the obligatory lectures. But I also didn't have that same need to find oblivion in blood and power in death because I had something that filled those places.

I had her.

_Fuck._

"I don't—I-" Words, Damon. Use your fucking words. "Try something. Tell me something. Order me to do something."

"Send me away," she said. The words crashed through the air. "Tell me to go. Tell me you don't love me, don't want me, don't need me with you. Tell me."

There was a tug, a fishhook that wanted to drag the words out. It was the chickenshit part of me that was so, so much more frightened of love than of a sire bond. A sire bond could be broken, could be weaseled out of. Probably, anyway. But love? With Elena? That was for keeps. She would keep changing me, keep making me into a person who was expected to do good, who didn't go on blood and booze benders because some asshole cut him off in traffic. Who listened to her and respected her and occasionally took prisoners instead of leaving corpses.

I could say the words and I would be free to be exactly who I wanted.

I got out of the car. I walked over to the passenger side and yanked the door open. Elena shrank back into her seat. For all her bravado, she hadn't known what was going to happen.

"Damon. You don't...I was-"

"Get out of the car," I said.

"Why?"

"You're driving."

Her eyes flickered uncertainly. "To Houston?"

"Home." I dangled the keys between my thumb and forefinger. "If you want. You don't have to, but-"

She stood, closed her fingers around the keys and kissed me, a soft and almost childlike kiss, her lips curved into a smile. I pulled back and looked into her eyes. There it was again: staring into the Grand Canyon.

Only thing left to do was jump.

I took the passenger's seat. Elena slid behind the wheel. She put the keys into the ignition and took a deep breath. "You ready?"

Nope. I never would be. "Hit it."

Together, we drove.

_The end. _


End file.
